Pesticidet test: No bouquet of flowers without poison

“Up to 30 different pesticides can ever be detected,” summarizes pesticide expert Waltraud Novak. That is also a health risk. “Reproduction damage, cancer or disorders in the hormone balance are just a few of the possible effects,” she warns.

Maximum 19 different fabrics
The laboratory found pesticides with particularly negative health properties on all ten bouquets examined. “The negative highlight of our test was a mixed bouquet of flowers with a total of 19 very problematic substances,” said Novak.

“Unknown source of danger”
Ten or more pesticides were found on more than half of the bouquets. Novak warns: You do not know how the individual substances can react with each other and whether certain risks can increase. “An unknown source of danger can sleep here,” she warns.

However, there is a positive exception: the laboratory found only three pesticides on a tulip bouquet from Austria.

Forbidden pesticides found
Almost all bouquets of flowers were charged with pesticides that are not allowed in the EU. “Sometimes there are substances that have not been approved in the European Union for more than ten years,” says Novak. But she also takes the flower dealers: “We expect that the providers only offer flowers that do not poison the environment or endanger human health.”

Investments of origin are often missing
The information about the origin also leaves something to be desired. On nine out of ten bouquets, the expert criticizes where they came from. “Most flowers come to Europe via the port of Rotterdam, but production takes place almost exclusively in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania or Ecuador,” she explains.